The orchestral works of Azerbaijani
composer Fikrat
Amirov are often heard in Baku's ornate Ballet and Opera
Theater, the Philharmonia, and the Republic Palace. But lately,
Amirov's music has found a new venue and is being discovered
by an entirely new audience. Sixteen-year-old Michelle Kwan,
a Chinese-American from Los Angeles and winner of the 1996 World
Championship Figure Skating Competition, is skating to Amirov's
music in competitions all season as she prepares for
the 1997 World Championships to be held this March in Lausanne,
Switzerland.

We found Michelle's choreographer,
Lori Nichol, in Toronto, Canada, and asked how she had chanced
upon this composer who is highly esteemed in Azerbaijan, but
is known so little beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.

When
Lori Nichol first happened upon Amirov's "Gulistan Bayati
Shiraz" this past January, she knew it was a winner. "It
blew me away!" she confesses. "It was so passionate,
majestic and intriguing. It had all the characteristics we had
been looking for. It's such a deep and complicated piece of music.

"Very few orchestral pieces
are left that play well in a huge arena filled with 20,000 fans,"
observes Nichol. "You need something dramatic and full of
energy that commands attention and yet fulfills all the other
requirements of the program, as well. We thought the Amirov piece
could do it."

It's no exaggeration that Nichol
listened to hundreds and hundreds of symphonic pieces this past
year before coming across Amirov's "Gulistan."

Nichol, who has created hundreds
of programs, is always in search of new music, convinced that
fresh ideas and fresh interpretations give the skater an "edge"
in competition. That's why she devotes nearly the entire year
to listening to symphonic music to find the pieces she thinks
will choreograph best.

"I have a strong memory
for steps that I've choreographed in the past. When I hear a
piece of music that I've worked with before, it's very hard for
me to mentally erase the original movements that I've come to
associate with it. That's why I like the challenge of identifying
new music."

Michelle's coach, Frank Carroll,
judges music in terms of whether or not it is memorable. "When
the event is over, I want people to go home humming the melody
or, at least, having it play over and over in their minds."
No doubt, he's counting on the subconscious power of the music
to influence the judges over the duration of the season. Carroll
should know what works. From his training camp at Lake Arrowhead
in the San Bernadino Mountains east of Los Angeles, he has trained
numerous skaters who have gone on to become national and international
champions.

But there's more to choosing
music for the ice than mere personal preference. Rules of competition
place severe restrictions on the selection process. For starters,
vocal music with lyrics or words is not allowed. A new rule,
however, passed in June 1996, permits music that uses voices
as instruments. It was a lucky break for Nichol as she wanted
to choreograph Amirov's ballet, "The Arabian Nights,"
for another young skater, Jere Michael, who is trying to qualify
for the U.S. National Championships. Nichol found the music to
be "absolutely gorgeous," and was so glad the rules
had been changed so that she could develop it.

But the greatest restrictions
have to do with the duration of the piece. Competitive skaters
perform two programs. The Short Program cannot exceed two minutes
and 40 seconds. Eight separate elements-spins, spirals, footwork
and double- and triple-rotation jumps-must be performed in that
brief time. The Free Program can extend to four minutes and 10
seconds for women. This program gives skaters a chance to highlight
the movements they do best. Michelle does seven triple-rotation
jumps, two double axles, as well as spins, steps, and freestyle
moves that she thinks best exhibit her artistry and flexibility.
The Free Program counts for two-thirds of the total points of
the combined performances.

According to Nichol, the music
has to build at precisely the right moments-both in terms of
tempo and crescendo. But that doesn't mean that a piece will
work well if it's all "vivace" or "presto."
Typically, music is chosen which has a change in tempo or, at
least, a pause to give the skater a chance to catch her breath.
And a piece must always resolve itself in a climax within the
given time frame.

With all these requirements,
it's no wonder that skaters settle for pieces that have been
used over and over again, such as "Romeo and Juliet"
by either Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, "William Tell Overture"
by Rossini, Hungarian Dances by Bartok, "West Side Story"
by Bernstein or other pieces by Rachmaninoff or Chopin.

Finding Music

Each
autumn, it's "music-buying time," when Nichol straps
her two-year-old son, Austin, into the back seat of her car for
the hour's drive to Toronto where she can shop at the major music
stores.

Photo: Lori Nichol and her son Austin of Canada.
Nichol discovered the Amirov music and choreographed Michelle
Kwan's Figure Skating Program.

It's typical for her
to buy anywhere from $400-$500 worth of CDs on a single trip.
Fortunately, she's discovered the HMV chain of stores which offers
a return policy. "We used to spend thousands of dollars
and sometimes end up with nothing for all our time, effort, and
money. But now we can sample the music of many composers that
we would never have dared to purchase otherwise," Nichol
notes appreciatively.

After making her selections,
she places up to six CDs into the built-in CD player in her car,
and listens all the way back home to Keswick. She quickly scans
past the material she know won't work. "I'm probably a hazard
on the freeway, with a baby in the back seat and me, listening
so intensely to music. I've missed my exit more than once,"
she confesses.

Soon after Nichol found the
Amirov piece, Michelle flew to Toronto, and the two tried the
music out on the ice. "Sometimes, you hear a piece in the
comfort of your studio and it sounds wonderful, but then when
you try to skate to it, it simply doesn't work," says an
experienced Nichol, who won second place in the 1983 Professional
World Championships. But Michelle loved the Amirov piece immediately
and found it exotic and mysterious.

The next task was to begin the
long and arduous task of editing. The "Gulistan"
piece at 16 minutes in length was considered quite long
to edit down to a mere four minutes. Nichol found herself listening
to the entire production over and over again. "It's a tough
job when you're trying to stay true to the composer's original
intentions. Our goal is to maintain the essence of the piece
and truly reflect the spirit of the composer, while at the same
time support the technical aspects of skating as well."

Photo:Yalchin
Adigezalov, Director of Azerbaijan's State Symphony Orchestra,
who conducted Fikret Amirov's music.
Editing needs to take into account the best way to maximize the
energy of the skater. Obviously, in the early minutes of the
piece, the skater is fresher, so the music can be faster and
more intense. But soon the skater needs a break from this fast
tempo. Since the "Gulistan" piece really didn't have
any slow parts that worked, they had to introduce a short section
by the French composer Maurice Jarre. "It's tremendously
difficult to perform artistically when the technical demands
are so high. You have to do what makes the skater look best and
what will not adversely affect the elements," observes Nichol.

Editing was a tedious job that
took weeks. "We must have edited about 20 different versions
from beginning to end before we were satisfied." After that,
Nichol and Kwan began to choreograph.

Amirov's piece is defined as
a "symphonic mugam" (pronounced moo-GAM) in the spirit
of traditional Azerbaijani music. "We had a lot of difficulty
trying to figure out what 'mugam' meant. We took it to a music
professor, we called friends, and we asked people with music
degrees, but no one could give us a meaningful answer. In the
end, we followed our own intuition. We felt that simply enjoying
the energy and passion of Amirov's piece was more important than
being able to describe it theoretically."

Next, because the music had
such depth, they felt they should develop a story line. "It
just seemed to be saying something to us, so we took artistic
license and created a love story," Nichol says, reflecting
on the creative process.

It turns out that her intuition
was right. "Gulistan" means "place of flowers
or flower garden," and "Bayati
Shiraz" is the name of one of the classical modes
of mugam which is very popular in Azerbaijan. This specific mode
is made up of musical intervals that are believed to inspire
feelings of well-being, passion and love.

The CD liner notes indicate
that Amirov had been influenced in his composition by the poetry
of the Persian writers Hafiz (13th century) and Saadi (16th century).
Unfortunately, no mention is made of the specific poems.

The Taj Mahal Story
Line

Listening to it for the zillionth
time, Frank finally said, "Well, what about the Taj Mahal?"
Could they choreograph the piece to personify the splendor of
this beautiful architectural monument? But the Taj Mahal is in
India, not Azerbaijan. They wondered if they should dare such
a combination.

"We both love the Taj Mahal
even though we've never been there," says Nichol. So she
headed to the library in search of more information. She discovered
that the monument was completed in 1643 after 22 years of construction.
The council of architects involved was quite cosmopolitan for
its day, including experts from India, Persia and Central Asia.
Shah Jahan had dedicated the Taj Mahal to the memory of his wife,
Arjumand Banu Begam, who had died in childbirth. She was often
called "Mumtaj Mahal," which translates as "Chosen
One of the Palace."

Finally after much searching,
Nichol found a quote describing the memorial: "Both inside
and out, the marble reflects the light and mood of the changing
day. Dazzling at noon. Warm and glowing at dusk. Soft and ethereal
in the moonlight like the varying moods of a beautiful woman."

And based upon that description,
Nichol and Carroll created the choreography-the imagery of the
sun as it shines against the white marble of the building casting
various shadows and creating different moods. The artistic movement
climaxes in the evening when the story reveals the spirit of
Mumtaj rising out of the crypt, searching through the halls of
the mausoleum for her husband and then dancing with him. Then,
just before the sun rises for a new day, she disappears in despair
back into her grave.

According to Nichol, so many
details have gone into choreographing this piece, even down to
the smallest rippling movements of the body and facial expressions.
The performance is filled with such subtleties.

"Part of what I'm trying
to do in the choreography is to touch the hearts and imagination
of people," Nichol confides. "That's what Michelle
is trying to do, too. We're trying to give a gift to the people
who are watching. And if, in the process, we're able to attract
attention and focus upon a culture such as Azerbaijan's that
is relatively unknown, because of our choice of music, well,
then, that's an added bonus!"

"But I hope we haven't
offended Azerbaijanis by having chosen a story line based on
the Taj Mahal. It all somehow felt so relevant-the majestic,
rich music personifying such an extraordinarily beautiful monument."

According to Nichol, Amirov's
"Gulistan" is extremely powerful music and, therefore,
requires an extremely adept and powerful skater like Michelle
to perform it. "The music is so strong that if the skater
isn't exceptional, it would make her look weak."

"The performance is over
so quickly," she observes. "I don't think people can
really comprehend the complexity and difficulty of Michelle's
performance-perhaps not even some of the judges. I think you
would have to get a video of her performance and play it over
and over again, slowly, to really comprehend the level of difficulty
at which she is performing. She's really phenomenal!"

Michelle is busy now perfecting
the Amirov piece, which she will perform in at least three more
competitions, culminating in the World Championships which are
being held in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 17-23, 1997. So far
she has won first place in all three competitions in which she
has participated. Still to go are the Ultimate Four on December
22, the U.S. National Championships from February 10-16 (televised)
and the Champions Series Finals from February 27-March 1 (televised).

Current information about
Michelle Kwan is available at Web site<http://turnpike.net/~adweb
/kwan/index.html>.

Fikrat Amirov's "Gulistan Bayati Shiraz"is
available as a CD on the Olympia Explorer Series Label, OCD 490.
The performance was conducted by Azerbaijani Yalchin Adigezalovwith
the Moscow Radio & TV Symphony Orchestra in Moscow in 1993.